Etymology
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Celtic (adj.)

also Keltic, 1650s, in archaeology and history, "pertaining to the (ancient) Celts," from French Celtique or Latin Celticus "pertaining to the Celts" (see Celt). In reference to the language group including Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, Breton, etc., from 1707. Of modern peoples or their other qualities, by mid-19c. The Boston basketball team was founded 1946. Celtic twilight is from Yeats's name for his collection of adapted Irish folk tales (1893).

Entries linking to Celtic

celt (n.)

"stone chisel," 1715, according to OED from a Latin ghost word (apparently a mistake of certe) in Job xix.24 in Vulgate: "stylo ferreo, et plumbi lamina, vel celte sculpantur in silice;" translated, probably correctly, in KJV as, "That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever." But assumed by others to be a genuine carving tool, partly because it was in the Bible, and thereafter adapted by archaeologists as a name for a class of prehistoric implements.

updated on October 25, 2017

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Dictionary entries near Celtic

cellulose

Celsius

celt

Celt

Celt-Iberian

Celtic

cement

cementation

cemetery

cenacle

-cene

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